So why does that left eye of his keep bugging me? It’s like the rest of his face and his body were with you completely, but this one part of him is keeping an eye on the boss. And the boss is Satan.
I’ve just read this over. I disgust myself. I don’t believe a word I’ve written. Now shut up, Witch, and copy the Desiderata. I order you to do it beautifully, in your best handwriting:
DESIDERATA
Go placidly amid the noise and the haste. And remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth . . .
This is ridiculous. I just realized I’m still on my mother’s old Catholic guilt trip, doing penance for having ugly thoughts. I refuse to defile the Desiderata by copying it down as a punishment. I’ll wait and do it when the perfect moment arrives for it and not a second before.
I suppose I’m just trying to avoid writing what happened between Archie and me a few minutes ago. But now that I think about it, it’s not so horrible.
There’ve been all these glances passing between us ever since that first night. As a rule, when one of us gets caught at it, the other smiles, and nothing ever gets said. But today it was different.
I came down and found him here stringing his guitar, and like a fool I said, Oh excuse me, and started out of the room. But then he called me back and asked me why I excused myself.
“I don’t know. Maybe because you’re working. I don’t really know.”
“Have you got something else to do?”
“Nothing urgent. I was just bringing my notebook up to date.”
“Why not do it here?”
I said I didn’t know why not. And then I looked at him, really looked at him to see if I could find out what was in his head. He was sort of smiling in a knowing way, and I got the feeling he knew I was attracted to him and was teasing me about it.
I said, “Archie, you look like you’re amused about something. Am I right?”
“I don’t know. Do I look amused? Maybe I am.”
“Yes, maybe you are. I always feel you’re teasing me.”
“Teasing?” His right eye and his entire face found the idea incredible—but his left eye went right on doing its little number on my head. I got annoyed. But I didn’t let it creep into my voice. I spoke reasonably.
“Yes, Archie. Teasing. And I don’t dig that, because I’m not into games.”
“Games? You think I’m into games? Listen, my rap is harmony.”
“I know,” I said. “I’ve heard your rap. It’s very beautiful.” I said it as if I meant it.
“But you don’t buy it?”
I just looked at him. His whole face was working together at putting out this big sincerity blast. Then Cary Colorado came into the room with his arms full of kindling and started to build the fire. He must have picked up on the voltage we were putting out, because without even looking at either of us, he asked us to make a circle with him. Archie had my left hand, and he squeezed it in a way that made me feel he was begging me to believe him. My right hand was in Cary’s, so naturally I was getting these really powerhouse vibes. Between the two of them, my mind turned to mush and everything got simple again. I loved them both and they loved me. Pretty soon we were all smiling at each other and feeling this invisible white sweetness passing through us.
I said, “Archie, was I hassling you before, when Cary came in?”
Archie said, “No, I didn’t feel like I was being hassled.”
Then Cary grinned like an adorable little ape and said, “Look, Ma, no hassles,” which made us laugh again. So we broke the circle, and Cary started his Yoga.
Archie said he had to go out and would I walk him down to the street. I said sure. And when we got down there, he said, “Listen, Witch, if you should happen to feel like getting in bed with me some night, just crawl in.”
Thank heaven he wasn’t looking at me, because I was wrecked. Of course, being a large phony, I was careful not to betray myself. I said something breezy like “Fantastic idea, Archie,” and ran upstairs.
But why did I get so angry? It seems to me now that under the circumstances this was a very cool thing for him to say. He looks like a god; can he help it? He sees this chick obviously freaked out over him and he invites her into his bed—at her convenience. What more can a girl ask for? Wedding rings, annuities, promises? It’s absurd. I’m the one that’s off base in this entire matter. Thank heaven I have a notebook for this drivel so I can keep my head free of it.
(But I still don’t trust A.F.!)
CANAL STREET, SEPTEMBER 12, 1969
ROY SPENDS THE DAY IN THE BRONX
as told to
Witch Gliz
I get this job through an ad. It’s selling children’s books door to door. I despise the idea of selling, but I decide to try it because I figure they probably won’t ask for identification. On the first day, we drive up to the Bronx in the boss’s car. There’s myself, a black dude named Bristol, who was also a beginner, and this really tough black chick named Harriet, who’s supposed to show us what to do. I’m the only one with a license, so I do the driving.
The day goes along okay. Nobody wants to hear about these books though. All they want you to do for them is go away and leave them alone. I get hollered at a few times but it’s not terrible. Anyway, at the end of the day, Bristol and myself are sitting in the car in front of some apartment building, waiting for Harriet to come out. Across the street there’s an elementary school. Otherwise it’s just a regular neighborhood.
All of a sudden the car door opens and I’m being told to get out. Then I see the door on Bristol’s side is being opened and somebody’s telling him to get out, too. It’s a pair of plainclothesmen. They show us a badge, shove us up against the car and search us. One of them, a fat-faced guy with little pink eyes, starts questioning us. What are we doing up here? I tell him, but he says I’m a fucking liar. That’s his favorite word, he uses it about a hundred times.
I show him all the stuff in the back seat, the children’s books, the flyers, all the order forms. And that’s when it starts getting creepy. Because at this point they believe us. I can tell they do, and yet they keep on pretending not to.
They ask if we have police records. I say no. Bristol says, yes, for possession and assault. So what do they do? They leave Bristol alone in the car—unguarded—and they take me, the cat that doesn’t have a record, into this apartment building. The pink-eyed one says, “Come in here and talk. It’s cold outside.” And they get me in there by the mailboxes and tell me to take off my sweater. I ask them what they’re after, and the guy says, “We want to see if you’ve got tits and a pussy along with all that pretty hair.”
Up to this point I’m being cooperative, because I’m afraid if they take me in they’ll find out about my thing with the draft. But now it’s getting too weird, because they start throwing me around and pushing me against walls and slapping me in the face. So I tell them I’ve got a right to know what’s happening. Then the one that’s been silent up to now says, “You’re selling heroin to school kids and we know it. Look at you, tracks all over your arm.” All the while I’m trying to figure out what they’re talking about because my arms haven’t got a mark on them and they know it. Then he shows me his fist and he says, “If I shove that in your face will you tell the truth?” Then the fat-faced one pulls out a razor, an actual goddam razor, and he says, “I’ll bet he jerks off fifth-grade kids. Is that what you do, you filthy little motherfucker?” He grabs hold of my hair and asks me if I’d like a haircut. But the other guy says, “No, don’t cut his hair. We’ll need it to hang on to when he goes down on us.” Just then the inside door opens, and it’s Harriet, on her way out of the building. She sizes up the situation pretty fast, and she’s not scared of these guys either. She says, “What’s the matter, Roy?” Suddenly the silent one gets very dignified. “You know this person?” he says. Harriet looks him right in the eye “Yes, I do,” she says. Then he sho
ws her his badge. “Narcotics squad. Routine check.” And he turns to me. “Okay, you can go.” Then they give me my sweater back, and we split.
On the way back downtown, Harriet says to me, “How do you like bein’ a nigger?” I tell her I don’t care for it. And when we get back to the office, I get fired for not coming up with any prospective buyers for the books.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1969, 11 P.M., 23RD STREET AUTOMAT
I’m wrecked. My mind won’t stop. It’s been leading me around by the nose all day long and I’m not going to let it get away with any more shit.
The Desiderata says, “Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.”
I haven’t been gentle, I’ve been indulgent. I’ve been compulsive and foolish and reckless, and I’ve followed every single whim as if it were a command, and what’s worse, my darling little mind has been justifying each disastrous step, one after another. The Mothers of Invention say the mind is the ugliest part of the body. Well, mine is in for a face lift. Or at least a good purge. I’m going to sit here at this table until I’ve written everything that’s happened today, and when I get done, if my mind hasn’t had enough, I’ll just keep writing until it faints from sheer exhaustion. Yesterday I was so full of clarity and purpose and good sense, I felt like some kind of a saint. Maybe from now on when I’m feeling so absolutely certain I’ve found the Handle, I should take it as a clue that I’m about ready to fuck up on a grand scale.
For the sake of fairness, I should consider one mitigating factor. It’s just faintly possible I was thrown into this spiral of stupidity by the shock of finding my father this afternoon. His being such a crushing disappointment might not have helped matters either.
Careful, Witch Gloria, don’t let yourself off the hook too quickly. There’s work to be done. Right now.
(Witch Gloria. I like the sound of that. A little of the old, a little of the new. I guess I’ve been missing my old name and didn’t even realize it till now. Gloria. Hello, Gloria, dear old friend of my babyhood, dear bewildered, frightened, brave, lonely companion of my girlhood. . . .)
I paused just now for a cry. It was nice. The Automat gives you these paper napkins to blow your nose on.
And now, back to work:
This afternoon Sally Sunflower took me up to City College on the subway. Everyone was extremely helpful. But they have no Henry Glyczwyczes teaching in the History Department. I studied all the names in the catalog, hoping to find one that sounded like something you’d change your name to if your name was Glyczwycz. But there weren’t even any Henrys. We walked around the halls for a while because I had a hunch I’d be able to pick up my father’s vibes if he was on the premises. But there were no vibes either.
Coming back downtown on the subway, I got an awful fit of anxiety. I told Sally I was afraid I’d never find him, that I’d spend my entire life expecting to run into him everywhere I went. In twenty years there’d be this skinny, haggard, frenetic little madwoman running around from city to city, staying in tacky rented rooms, passing her days hanging around History Departments looking for her father. Sally chose not to be comforting, and I don’t blame her. Not now. But at the time I could have chewed her up and spit her out. Because she said, “Each of us can have any life he envisions for himself.”
The brilliant thing about Sally is that in her sweet, wonderful way, she’s absolutely uncompromising. She took my hand and said, “Oh, Witch, don’t you know if you’re supposed to find him, you will? And if you’re not, you won’t?”
I said, “Sally, I know you’re right. Of course you are. But don’t you see, I’ve got a moon in Scorpio, and Scorpios are driven!”
“Only if they want to be,” she said. “If a person’s not determined to grow beyond her chart, rise above all the negative things in it, she’d be better off tearing it up. Honestly, Witch. Astrology mustn’t be a map you follow until you’re in hell. It’s got to be a guide for expansion of consciousness.” The subway train was making a ghastly noise that made me feel even more desperate and anxious. I was in no mood for the truth, and having it shouted into my ear didn’t help much. Even while I was hearing it, I knew she was right, but something in me wouldn’t let me up for a second.
When we got to Columbus Circle, Sally said, “Come on!” She got up and walked off the train. Subway maps have me completely flummoxed, so I had no choice but to follow her out onto the platform.
She said, “I’ll tell you what! We’ll go to all the colleges, one after another. We’ll do everything we can to find him. But if we fail, will you promise to give up?”
I promised.
Then she said there were two schools at this stop, Central Park J.C., and Hunter, right across the park. We decided to try them both, and if my father wasn’t teaching at either of them, we’d give up for the day and try N.Y.U. and the New School tomorrow.
The first one we went to was Central Park J.C., and we found him immediately. It couldn’t have been easier. We walked right into the Administration Building, went up to the desk and asked. No Glyczwyczes. Sally asked for a list of history courses. They gave it to her. The third one on the list was “Contemporary Events, Room 304. Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, 3 to 4 P.M. H. Gliss.”
I’d already imagined his name might be something like Gliss, so of course it was perfectly clear we’d found him.
Sally said, “This is Monday, Witch, he’s probably up there right now. What do you want to do?”
I said, “I want to faint.”
“Oh, my God, really?”
“Really.”
She guided me to the drinking fountain. Which turned out to be one of those wonders of modern technology where you open your poor dry little mouth, lean in, and get your entire face squirted off. My hair was drenched. Anyway, it cooled me off.
We sat on a bench in the hall and talked it over. What was I to do? I could see only two alternatives. Walk right into the class, introduce myself, and then faint. Or wait till it was over, catch him coming out, and keel over in his arms. Sally said there must be something else. And I said, “You’re dead right, there is. I’ll pose as a student, call myself Rita LaFlubb or something, and look him over. If I don’t dig him, we can split.”
“You mean,” Sally said, “you could actually see your father for the first time in your entire life, and walk away without telling him who you are?”
“Could I ever! Come on, let’s go!”
Now that I had this sneaky little plan giving me fuel, I was operating like a dynamo. I flew up the stairs and down the hall, Sally right behind me, and waltzed into Room 304 without so much as a second thought. Furthermore, I sat in a front seat and looked right into his eyes.
It’s a good thing I was sitting down. Because all my guts abandoned me the minute our eyes met.
He hated me. He absolutely hated me. And I hated him right back. His eyes were awful: I felt like they were calling me dreadful names. They were saying, You’re stupid, you’re superficial, you’re late, you’re a female, you’re wasting my time, you’re worthless, why don’t you get the hell off this planet altogether!
And I was thinking, Watch your step, Professor Gliss, your daughter is a witch. She knows how to deal with hateful old bastards. She’s been trained by experts all her life. So cool it and cool it fast, or she’ll spit in your eye. And I could have too. My spit would have been pure carbolic acid and blinded him for life.
By that time, he was looking at Sally. She must have been smiling, because he said good afternoon. Then he glanced at me again and went on talking to the class.
My mind was chattering at me like some loony little bird. This is your father, it said, this is Daddy, this is Papa. One day a long time ago, this man got on top of your mother and planted you in her. The seeds of you came out of his balls. Those very balls are hanging there right now, inside of those awful baggy pants, and the stupid thing doesn’t even know you’re a part of him. He doesn’t know anything, not really. How can he? He’s full of hate and mean
ness, and there isn’t any room left in him for knowing anything. He doesn’t like you and he doesn’t like himself and he doesn’t like the world and he doesn’t like anything at all. How sad he is. What a sad man is my father. Gloria. Gloria dear, you are looking at Henry Glyczwycz. Isn’t this what you’ve been wanting to do since you were born, or at least since you were twelve, when you first heard of his existence? This is Hank, this is your mother’s lover, the very man your Uncle Mickey told you about when you were twelve. He’d just enjoyed one of Mother’s superduper special put-downs for being drunk and he blurted out the whole works! “Hey, Gloria,” he said on his way out to the car, “ask your mother how Hank is. Ask her if she’s heard anything from her kike lover lately.” You knew he was going to tell you something awful, but you knew you had to hear it because somehow you’d always known anyway. Besides, you’re the kind of a chick who has to hear everything. And so you went to the car, drawn to it, magnetized, hypnotized, while your mother was screaming at you from the front walk. “Gloria, get in this house. Gloria Random, don’t you go near that car.” But you went near it all right. You got in fast and sped away and in thirty seconds you had the whole story, digging it totally right from the start. It was immediately and wildly thrilling to be the love child of a Polish Jew who’d been thrown out of three universities for preaching Communism, to be so nearly a bastard you had every right to call yourself one, because if your mother hadn’t managed to drag that bloodless little broker to the altar in the nick of time, you’d be one for real. (But of course he wasn’t dragged, he was delighted. His self-satisfied little tail must have wagged all the way up the aisle. And it wasn’t in the nick of time either. The lump that was you was only three months along and probably hadn’t even begun to show yet. How could it, under about six miles of virginal white tulle?) You carried around this new knowledge of Gloria like a shining secret possession, whispering over and over again, I am not a WASP, I am not a WASP, I am not a WASP, until it all ran together and became IYAMNOTAWASP and lost some of its shine and nearly all of its sense. So you carried it over to John’s basement and renewed it all by telling it out loud for the first time, and in the telling it got even better. “John, I just found out from my Uncle Mickey that I am a Polack Jew Bastard!” But careful! Careful this time not to squander the spell by repeating it too often. And then the phrase began to sink in, until it sank in deep, really deep, and became knowing. Knowing at last what you’d only felt before, that you were truly and truly and truly an alien in Waspland, an exotic foreigner even by blood! a stranger, caught—but only for a while!—in the land of the carpeted, insulated smile and the glossy stainless steel frown, where words were for hiding behind and not for showing who you were.
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